Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a medical term is classified as a form of dementia, a group of conditions that gradually destroy brain cells. Alzheimer's generally appears in older persons, continuing steadily to disorder brain and gradually destroys a person's memory and ability to make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities. Scientists now believe that the cause of AD is most likely due to the concentration of Beta-amyloid deposited in some part of the brain. As Alzheimer's progresses, patients may also experience changes in behavior during their personal lives, such as anger, agitation and sometimes even delusions or hallucinations.
There is not a cure and/or successful treatment for Alzheimer's. All the reported treatment methods do not show a light at the end of the tunnel. The results of the reported treatments are mostly either based on exercise, body treatment, or based on some herbal remedies and dietary supplements. One promising treatment reported by scientists at the University of South Florida promoting the most potent antioxidant EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate), which is found in green tea. Scientists discovered if they treated the Alzheimer's patients with concentrated EGCG, it will reduce noticeable amount of their Beta-amyloid deposited in brain.
During the past few years, several breakthroughs for AD have been reported where all these breakthroughs are only effective on the early stages of Alzheimer's. Researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago are working in gene transfer using very thin needles; inject the drug into the area of brain that deteriorates very early on Alzheimer's. This techniques and other similar methods are only promising if Alzheimer's has been detected at its early development.
If the patient is treated at the early stage of disease, the patient can have a relatively good life style even though he/she is not totally cured. Therefore, the diagnosis and early detection of Alzheimer's is highly desirable and it is in the world's interest. Many methods and suggestions are reported during the past decade in literatures and patent disclosures for Alzheimer's detection and diagnosis. Presently, there are no simple methods like blood or urine test that can detect Alzheimer's.
In the following there are several prior art methods presently used for early detection of Alzheimer's:                1. Testing the patient's memory by asking questions and studying the patient's family history to determine if Alzheimer's is present. This is not very reliable technique and it mostly is done by a family doctor as initial warning for Alzheimer's.        2. Brain scanning by such techniques as CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) could be used for AD diagnosis. The problem of these techniques is that they are only effective at the late stages of Alzheimer's which the damage is already done.        3. Researchers at New York University Medical Center have reported EEG (electroencephalogram) testing that measures electrical activity in the brain to pinpoint the early signs of Alzheimer's as warning signal. In this method, the measured brain activity of patient is compared to a standard activity of a patient with no Alzheimer's disease. This method still is at initial study stage and according to the scientists at Alzheimer's Association, there is concern that EGG study is too limited and the findings are too preliminary.        4. Researchers in the Netherlands reported that they can predict the early detection of Alzheimer's by measuring the size of two parts of the brain, the hippocampus, and amygdala. For those patients who have smaller sizes of these two parts against some standard have several time more likely to suffer from the Alzheimer's decease. The technique is still at study stage and mostly is looking for any type of dementia; they are not focusing on Alzheimer's. Another drawback of this technique is direct scanning of the brain which is likely harmful to patient.        5. There is a new technique recently reported by several institutes including Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The technique is detecting early phases of Alzheimer's disease by measuring the level of Beta-amyloid protein plaques deposited in the lens of the patient's eye using a non-invasive laser scanning and imaging. This new discovery could revolutionize early detections of Alzheimer's disease including most of the dementia disorders. All the previous measuring techniques have to use part of the brain for detection which is not advisable. The fact that the plaque (abnormal beta-amyloid protein) which deposits in the brain of Alzheimer's patient also will deposit simultaneously in the lens of the patient's eye similar to formation of cataracts, opens a new avenue for early diagnosis and continuous monitoring of Alzheimer's.        
Among the above listed prior arts for early detection of Alzheimer's, the most promising technique is the last method, Alzheimer's diagnosis by laser scanning the lens of patient's eye. Laser imaging of the eye for AD detection has now been accepted among the researchers to be a promising technique.
One example is Sianto et al in U.S. Pat. No. 6,162,186 who is claiming that AD Patients' autonomic nervous system is hypersensitive to the neural transmitter mediators (NTM), used as eye drops, with concentration so low that did not affect the pupil's diameter change and other pupil's characteristics if applied on a person with no sign of being AD symptom. They use standard CCD camera to measure the change in a diameter and constriction of the pupil in the eye of an AD patient in a short time. For measuring the pupil's constriction velocity, the test is done under a low light with controlled intensity and duration. The inventors compare this data of an AD patient with some predefined standard data taken from normal persons.
Another example is Zhou et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,988,995 who is using a diode laser with 780 nm radiation. The laser light is first collimated and then scans in 2 dimensions by a resonance scanner and a galvanometer scanner. The scanned beam is taking data from the eye RNFL (retinal nerve fiber layers) compared with some standard signatures. The inventors claim that their method is using birefringence data of the structural elements of the eye with sufficient accuracy which is required to identify the effects of AD in the RNFL. The drawback of the invention is that there is no experimental data to support the invention. In this patent the laser power is not known and its safety is questionable. Even the inventors are not sure that the method is practical and there is no proof that the RNFL is affected by AD.
The present arts have at least three major drawbacks. The first one is high intensity laser scanning which is harmful to the patient's eyes and sometimes extremely dangerous if it has to penetrate inside the layers of the deposited plague. The second problem of the existing disclosed methods is the requirement of large, heavy, and expensive apparatus which makes testing inconvenient to be done in Doctors' office and the patient has to go to hospital. The third drawback is the lack of a very sensitive and highly efficient testing process which is required for early detection of the AD symptoms.
From the above discussions of the prior arts, the only presently known means of positively proving and demonstration of AD case in a person can only be achieved by a brain biopsy or a postmortem examination to determine existing of the plaque (amyloid) in brain tissue. It is overwhelmingly obvious that there has been remained at large demand for an accurate diagnosis for these AD symptoms which do not include brain biopsy, surgery, or even using the harmful high dose MRI and CT.